


under the twisted light of warp speed

by wolfchasing



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, spoilers for just about everything from episode 10 and after of disco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 14:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13836951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchasing/pseuds/wolfchasing
Summary: Her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she relaxes her guard upon seeing the familiar pale form of Lieutenant Stamets. He is sitting on the ground, against the wall, and his arms are wrapped tightly around his knees. She takes a step closer, and can see his eyes are rimmed with red, with long-dried tear tracks having made their marks upon his face.//a missing scene between Michael and Paul.





	under the twisted light of warp speed

She’s collecting a tray of food from the commissary, not even paying attention to the world around her. Her mind is too heavily focused on thoughts of the war and various equations to even dwell on the grief and fear that are lingering in the back of her mind. On some occasions, her Vulcan training does her a great service when it comes to dealing with emotions that she would rather not consider at all.

She turns around, scanning the mess hall for some familiar faces – maybe Tilly, or even Keyla – but her eyes alight on one individual in particular, and every ounce of training abandons her.

Saru had warned her that he’d be out and about. Limited in security rating and accessibility, sure, but she hadn't expected to see him so soon.

It’s not the fact that he’s there that makes her gut curl in anxiety and betrayal, but the fact that so many of the crew – _her_ crew – are sitting with him, joking, consoling him. Even Tilly is there – dear sweet Tilly who had befriended a definitely guilty treasonous convict like herself. Of course Tilly would be there for someone she already knew and liked.

They see Tyler for what he is – a victim in this whole mess. He’d been made to do terrible things as Voq piloted his body. Logically, she knows that they are right. She knows that it wasn’t Ash that did these things.

But her body and her vicious lizard brain are rebelling against logic. She knows he is innocent, yet all she can think of was how he looked, and how his hands had felt wrapped around her neck. The bruises had long been regenerated away, but she still feels them, stark against her windpipe, crushing her larynx, choking the air from her lungs. _Enemy, predator, murderer, flee, flee, FLEE._

Michael freezes. She’s standing by the replicator, her knuckles turning bone white as she grips the edge of the metal tray, staring at Tyler. She wants to move, but she can’t.

She watches as Ash’s eyes make a casual sweep of the room – one he’d made many times before, sweeping for exits and guards and weapons – and sees his gaze catch at the sight of her.

She sees him twitch, imperceptibly. It would have been unnoticeable to any who hadn’t so intimate with him. His eyebrows twitch, and his hands lift off the table ever so slightly, and she just _knows_ that he’s going to stand up. She can’t deal with that right now. She knows she can’t.

Michael spins around so quickly that she almost takes out a poor ensign trying to get to the replicators, but she doesn’t particularly care. Her heart races, and adrenaline pumps through her veins, and she listens to those base instincts that are telling her to just _get out NOW._

She moves through the corridors of the Discovery, barely aware of her actions as she tries to put as much space between herself and the commissary as possible. She doesn’t see anything or anyone that she passes, and pays little mind to the concerned looks being levelled in her direction. She just needs to get _out._

She comes back to herself as she activates the door to the darkened space of Observation Deck 4 – a little used room with a wide window looking out into space. During the early days of the war, it had been a popular destination for club meetings – but with their severely diminished crew and dwindling morale, it hadn’t seen much use recently.

Michael takes a deep, deep breath as the doors _woosh_ closed behind her. Her eyes screw up, and she finds herself regressing to the emotional reactions of her childhood. “Stupid, illogical, _idiot._ He won’t hurt you. Not here. Not here.” She clenches her food tray tight in her grasp, feeling the metal warp ever so slightly under her hands.

There is a slight noise to her left – the shifting of a body – and she jumps. She’s twitchy and wound tight – the Terran ship had been a place of frequent ambushes and attempts on her life from opportunistic crew members. She readies herself, already lifting her tray into a position where she could use it as shield or a weapon.

Her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she relaxes her guard upon seeing the familiar pale form of Lieutenant Stamets. He is sitting on the ground, against the wall, and his arms are wrapped tightly around his knees. She takes a step closer, and can see his eyes are rimmed with red, with long-dried tear tracks having made their marks upon his face.

For a moment, they regard each other silently. Paul’s grief has left a tangible trail of destruction around the room – furniture has been overturned, a decorative vessel of some kind has been shattered against a wall, and a PADD lies broken next to his hip. For a moment, it seems to her like he’s vaguely embarrassed, but she sees something change in his face. Almost resigned, he releases his grip on his knees, and pats the empty space next to him.

Michael slowly sets the food tray down upon a ruined table, and moves over to his side, sliding down the wall until she is sitting in a position mirroring Paul’s pose, with her legs drawn close to her chest.

 “You saw Tyler.” Paul’s voice is harsh and reedy, as if he’d been yelling.

Michael nods, not needing to make eye contact. “So did you.” She watches the trail of a star shoot by as they pass at warp speed, as if it was nothing more than a particularly large firefly.

Another moment passes. “I did, yes,” Paul says, lacking any of the usual imperiousness that usually lines his voice. “He was just… walking around the ship, as if nothing were wrong. As if he hadn’t –“ Paul’s voice breaks. “As if his hands hadn’t –“ Michael hears him take short, sharp breaths – a mixture of anger and sorrow embedded into each sound.

“As if his hands weren’t the ones that did it.” Michael clenches her jaw as she completes Paul’s sentence. The parallels between Culber’s fate and her near brush with it are not lost on her. “I saw him in the mess hall, and all the others were laughing with him as if it were any other day. But I saw him and all I could feel were his hands around my neck, and his eyes just… hating me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Paul’s head nod once, the sound of his hair scraping against the wall works at her last nerve. She hasn’t cried in years, but all the pain is threatening to burst out of her like a fissure in a dam wall. She clenches her hand once, twice, and then reaches it out into the space between herself and Paul. She rests it against the ground, palm up – an open invitation.

“I… loved him,” she says, very quietly. She doesn’t want to make Paul’s pain worse, but he is likely the only one on the ship that’ll understand her in this moment. “I know it wasn’t possible or logical, not with my prison sentence – but I would still imagine a life with him after all of _this.”_ She clenches her jaw and closes her eyes. “I know it wasn’t him, but he still betrayed all of that. He wanted me dead and I can’t ever _forget_ that.”

A warm hand closes over hers and clasps it tight. “We were going to… leave.” His voice is as quiet as hers was. “Take a break from the spores and the war and just be so silly and happy and _together_.” Paul is squeezing her hand so tightly that she fears she may be developing hairline fractures. “And now he’s gone. And the man that did it – the man that _murdered_ Hugh – is still walking around this ship and – I’m just supposed to brush that aside and respect that?” He laughs bitterly, and Michael can’t help but agree with the sentiment. “Not a fucking chance.”

They sit together in the silence, hand in hand, united in their grief, illuminated only by the twisted light of warp speed.

**Author's Note:**

> i luv to suffer
> 
> wolfchasing.tumblr.com
> 
> update: translation into Hungarian (!!!) by ValentineWiggin now available at https://www.wattpad.com/560401687-filmes-oneshotok-ford%C3%ADt%C3%A1sai-a-t%C3%A9rsebess%C3%A9g


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